Raymond Frenken

Institutional investment portfolios in Europe could do with more venture capital, especially when it comes to making green impact investments, the Netherlands’ technology investment envoy Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau said in an IO Talks podcast interview. Van Oranje, who leads Amsterdam-based Techleap, a Dutch government sponsored tech investment initiative, spoke about the global business climate for technology investments, the effects of rising interest rates on tech investments, dilemmas around artificial intelligence, and the new Nato Investment Fund, which is being structured via Luxembourg.

It’s the middle of May and the full-year results are in. For publicly listed companies it would be yesterday’s news. Tax filings have been made and many firms even reported their first quarter. But in private equity, with its long-term perspectives, the ‘old’ data still can be worthy of a cover story, certainly when it comes to a year like 2022, marked by war, inflation and surging interest rates. The Q4 2022 Burgiss report shows how the market did.

The top representative of the City of London Corporation on Tuesday began a two-day visit to Luxembourg that includes meetings with Luxembourg for Finance, financial regulator CSSF, the finance ministry and representatives of the grand duchy’s banking sector.

Some long awaited regulatory clarity on ESG and sustainability requirements for fund and asset managers appears to have reduced the state of confusion that had led to a downgrade of approximately 270 billion euro in assets under management last year. Yet, some specialists believe that claims of greenwashing that have plagued the industry in the last year are at serious risk of continuing. 

Luxembourg’s banking sector is asking data protection and financial services authorities to provide more clarity on the use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Presenting its survey on the use of ChatGPT, bank sector group ABBL on Thursday said 38 per cent of bank employees are currently blocked from using such tools, which is significantly more than the average of 24 percent for the sector as a whole.

Belgium’s largest independent private bank, Degroof Petercam, is considering a major reshuffle of its ownership structure that could potentially lead to a new majority shareholder. Some of the existing owners, mainly Belgian noble families but also undefined “financial partners”, have indicated they want to sell their shares.

A deal could be worth more than one billion euro. Belgian state-controlled financial group Belfius, Credit Agricole, ING Groep and Royal Bank of Canada are reported as being possible bidders.  

European Depositary Bank, a Luxembourg-headquartered provider of banking, depositary and custody solutions that is part of the Apex Group, on Wednesday said it has appointed executive board member Holger Barth in a new role as global head of banking depositary. 

The appointment further bolsters EDB’s governance, which had been problematic for a number of years.

Current efforts to address global biodiversity loss are inadequate and face a financing gap of between 598 billion and 824 billion dollars per year, a new study has concluded. To address this gap, governments and businesses need to support the introduction of ‘biodiversity credit markets’, to be modelled in a manner similar to the carbon credit markets that already exist.

Referring to a “challenging year”, Belgian investment house Degroof Petercam on Saturday said that its operating income fell 16 per cent last year on the back of a decline in commission income. The drop was mitigated in part by higher interest margins.

The bank, which has a major presence in Luxembourg as asset manager, posted 106.7 million euro in operating income for 2022, down from 126.6 million a year earlier. The privately held company did not provide a breakdown of this income.

Luxembourg’s finance minister has tabled a proposal to the grand duchy’s parliament to encourage the uptake of European long-term investment funds known as Eltifs. If adopted, the proposal will exempt Eltifs from requiring to pay the quarterly registration tax levied on Luxembourg investment funds.